Advanced Logo: A Language for Learning

Advanced Logo: A Language for Learning

Advanced Logo: A Language for Learning

Synopsis

Advanced Logo shows how LOGO can be used as a vehicle to promote problem solving skills among secondary students, college students, and instructors. The book demonstrates the wide range of educational domains that can be explored through LOGO including generative grammars, physical laws of motion and mechanics, artificial intelligence, robotics, and calculus.

Excerpt

"When we were little," the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, "we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle--we used to call him Tortoise--"

"Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?" Alice asked. "We called him Tortoise because he taught us," said the Mock Turtle angrily. "Really you are very dull!"

(Alice in Wonderland, p. 126-127)

1.1. Learning to Compute and Computing to Learn

"Logo is a language for learning." This sentence--the subtitle of this book--has become one of the slogans of the Logo movement. There is of course a double meaning hidden slightly beneath the surface. One meaning suggests that Logo is a language for learning to compute, or to "program a computer." This is true, since Logo was designed to make computing as easy as possible to understand. But Logo is also a language for computing to learn. In this sense, it is useful to think of Logo as a computing environment to explore and "play with" ideas.

This book has two parts, each written to achieve a particular goal corresponding to these two meanings:

Part I, "Logo Thinking," is designed to help you learn the important ideas behind Logo as a programming language. The emphasis in this part is on learning to compute by describing ideas and processes with Logo programs, and understanding how to translate a verbal description into a working Logo program.

Part II, "Learning with Logo," is designed to demonstrate the use of Logo as a tool for exploring a variety of content areas. The emphasis here is on computing to learn and understanding the power of computing for making abstract ideas more concrete and manipulable.